“ATM,” Hazard snapped. “The M already means machine. And he didn’t have a pet.”

Pages rustled. “Of course, if I had someone significant in my life, I might use their birthday.” Pause. “But I don’t.” A longer pause, and more page rustling. “I’m unattached.”

Darnell was scratching his beard again.

“I swear to Christ, Darnell, one word.”

“Let me just—” Darnell had to stop to try to catch his breath. “I guess I’ll just try my birthday.” He keyed in the numbers and shook his head.

“What about an ex?” Hazard asked. “Was he dating anyone seriously before you? Back in Springfield? Maybe something that ended badly, and he might have fixated?”

Darnell’s face paled. He pushed the laptop away, until it rested on his knees.

“What?” Hazard said.

“Did—” Darnell toyed with the laptop, working the hinged screen back and forth. “Did John-Henry talk to you about this?”

“About what?”

“Geez. Ok. Um, I tried to keep this, uh, quiet, I guess. Because Gray promised me it was over. And because I didn’t want to, um, make waves.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What’s John-Henry’s birthday?”

“December 24, 1983.”

Darnell typed four numbers, and then he passed the laptop to Hazard. Hazard accepted it, staring as the log-in screen changed to the virtual desktop.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Darnell said in a quiet voice.

Hazard nodded. He didn’t want to talk about it either. He just wanted to find Gray Dulac and beat the ever-living shit out of him.

Letting that rage take control was dangerous, though, so Hazard focused on the device in front of him. A web browser was already open on the screen, with what looked like a hundred tabs; a kind of virtual version of not cleaning up your own mess. Hazard clicked through them one by one: an email web client, with about twenty missed BIGGEST SALE OF THE SUMMER messages from the previous few days; multiple pages with tips and suggestions for making your move as easy as possible (one genius tip was throw it all away and buy new stuff, which made Hazard cringe); and then, right in the middle, a tab open to the Missouri State Beekeeper’s Association. It was their list of local honey sellers. Hazard had to admit, he was impressed that Dulac had taken the same route in his search for the bees, but he already knew it was a dead end. He clicked to the next tab and found a webpage giving directions to somewhere in Golden City, Missouri, a town in the southwest corner of the state. Hazard moved to click past it—it was near Springfield, where Dulac had lived before moving to Wahredua, and Hazard assumed it was a personal connection— and then he stopped.

There were no local chapters of the Missouri State Beekeepers in Golden City. There were no local honey sellers. Hazard knew; he had memorized those damn printouts from looking at them so many times.

But he had trained himself to be thorough and rigorous and critical.